


Night Together

by nat_writes_stuff



Series: Night [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Skelebro Angst, night terror sans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 02:52:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5400128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nat_writes_stuff/pseuds/nat_writes_stuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans fell asleep happy but it doesn't mean it will stay that way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Together

Everyone was asleep in the living room.

Everyone except for Frisk.

They had fallen asleep next to Sans, snuggled up into the fluff of his jacket hood. That’s where they currently were now. Frisk saw everyone else lying around them and decided to go back to sleep. They had just closed their eyes when they felt the skeleton beside them twitch, causing them to glance upward at their friend. Sans’ face had a frown on it. Frisk smiled. He was just dreaming, they would ask him about it tomorrow.

As they were getting resituated, Sans twitched again. This time, it was accompanied by murmuring. Frisk couldn’t make it out at first, but as it grew steadily in volume, they recognized it to be one word on repeat.

“No.”

-

Sans had woken up where he had fallen asleep this time, but it had been oddly quiet. There were no soft snores coming from around him. In fact, the only breathing he could hear was his own. He sat up and looked around, regretting that decision almost instantaneously.

All around him was a fine, light, powdery dust.

He didn’t have much time to react before a laugh rang out from the shadows in front of him. A child’s laugh, but harsher. He knew it, somewhere in the back of his memory. It was followed by what sounded like a whimper that was stopped before it could even begin. He recognized it immediately as Frisk. They heard footsteps, the sound of feet forced to move forward. Sans saw the kid first. They were shaking, tears ran down their face. They were in pain. The next thing he saw was the knife, coated in the dust that was once his friends and family.

The last thing he saw was the flower, its stem wrapped around Frisk in all directions.

“Howdy, smiley trash bag!”

Sans heard Frisk cry out as they struggled against the flower’s grasp, and he scrambled to stand up. He noted that the familiar blue haze lit up his surroundings and tinted his left eye. He didn’t know what to do, there was no way to free Frisk without hurting them. He must have hesitated for too long, because before he knew it, two roots were wrapping themselves around his ankles. He was yanked off of his feet in an instant.

“Are you ready to join your friends, Sans?” The flower taunted him, sitting on Frisk’s shoulder. If only he could find a way to… As if reading his mind, the flower chuckled. “Oh no! Is it too hard to get a shot at me? Here, let me fix that!”

Frisk cried out as the flower tugged at their arms, turning the blade in towards the kid. He tried standing but the hold on his ankles grew tighter. He watched in horror as the kid was forced to finish off the movement.

If Sans recalled correctly, though he could never be quite sure, it had been a while since he had to fight a garden plant. Then again, there was nothing like a trip down memory lane, was there?

-

Frisk sat up. They decided it was better to wake up Sans, it didn’t seem like he was having the best time. They were about to gently shake him awake when his eyes shot open. Frisk jumped back, falling into a confused, half-asleep Papyrus who grumbled and rolled over, resuming the sleep that had been interrupted.

Frisk shuffled back to Sans, but froze when they looked at his face. His left eye was emitting an eerie blue glow, illuminating the whole room. It made Frisk’s heartbeat quicken, but they couldn’t quite understand why. Behind the human, Papyrus rolled back over after realizing his small friend hadn’t lied back down. He opened his eyes and was about to ask what the kid was doing when he noticed the blue light in the room. He sat up and realized what was playing out in front of him.

“Human, wait!” He whispered in a hushed but urgent tone. It was too late though. Frisk had shaken off the unexplainable uneasiness and was reaching for Sans’ shoulder. They had barely made contact before they realized that maybe they should have listened to their initial feelings.

The ground seemed to drop from beneath them as Sans shot up into a sitting position, his arm reaching high. As Frisk crashed into the ceiling with a force that knocked most of the wind out of them, Papyrus scrambled over to his brother and kneeled in front of him.

The noise of Frisk colliding with the ceiling was enough to wake Undyne and Alphys. The pair, groggy and startled by the sudden noise, tried to take in their surroundings. The first thing they saw was their human friend pressed against the top of the room. Papyrus turned around, seemingly relieved to have more hands to help out with the situation.

“You two! Stay there in case the tiny human needs someone to catch them! I have things covered over here, it’s nothing the Great Papyrus hasn’t handled before!” He decided it was a good idea to leave out that the first time he had handled a situation like this was the night before. The two nodded and turned their attention to Frisk.

Sans was getting more distressed with each passing moment. This was definitely different from the previous night. As Papyrus turned his direction back to his brother, Sans cried out.

“I couldn’t even keep my promise. I couldn’t save them. I can’t save anyone.”

He sounded so… broken. Papyrus’ heart dropped. Coincidentally, Frisk dropped from their place up against the ceiling at the same time. Undyne caught them, and when she had her arms around the small child she realized they were shaking.

“Brother! It’s me! It’s okay! Everyone is here, we’re okay!”

He looked at his brother’s face. This time around, there were no tears pooling in Sans’ eyes. His brother still had the distant gaze, though, and once again Papyrus was sure he was fighting something that wasn’t there. He looked like he was in scared and in pain. The blue in his left eye was even more intense than the previous night.

Papyrus braced himself as his hands connected with Sans’ shoulders. He expected to end up flying backwards through the air like last night, except this time around there would be a wall and not the soft, powdery snow. Instead, his brother just flinched, falling backward and barely catching himself with his hands.

Before Papyrus could move any closer, Sans let out a loud yell and jolted awake with one hand flying to clutch at his chest. He was shaking, and upon waking up was breathing hard. It seemed to take him several seconds before he had calmed down enough to recognize his surroundings, and another several seconds to realize there were people standing around him.

Papyrus was still kneeling in front of him. Alphys and Undyne were still with Frisk, who was still in Undyne’s arms. The tiny human was shaking, though not as much as before. Realization dawned on Sans’ face as his eyes darted around the room, followed by terror, guilt, and anger. It wasn’t anger turned towards the people around him though, Papyrus noted. It was anger turned towards himself.

“S-Sans?” Papyrus started moving towards his brother, but Sans had other ideas. Before anyone could stop him he vanished up the stairs, leaving everyone in a stunned silence.

-

Sans turned the lock as soon as he entered his room. He collapsed, sliding his back down the wooden door until he reached a sitting position. He could hear hushed voices downstairs. What had happened? What had he done? He had seen the fear in their eyes, especially in the kids. Had he…? The thought was too much. Sans cupped his face in his bony hands and began counting his breaths to distract himself from the whirl of emotions. As his breathing began to slow, he realized he couldn’t tell if the fear he felt was leftover from the dream or fear of himself and what he had done.

The front door closed. Sans figured Pap had sent the others home so he could have a talk. He was right. He heard footsteps up the stairs and was waiting for the knock before his brother had even reached the door. The knob tried to turn, and when the his brother realized he was locked out, he let out a sigh loud enough for Sans to hear through the door.

“Brother, can I come in?”

No response.

“Please Sans?” After he didn’t respond a second time, Sans heard another sigh, this one softer than the first, but he didn’t hear his brother walk away. Instead he heard a soft thud as his brother sat down outside his door.

“How long have these been going on, Sans? Why haven’t you let me know?” Sans let the first two questions go unanswered, and he almost missed the last one. It was quiet, barely a whisper, the complete opposite of his usually loud, lively, optimistic brother. “When did you start hiding things from me?”

“I-It’s not like that Pap.” Sans’ voice came out quiet too. Defeated, even. Before Papyrus could ask another question, Sans had to ask one more. “What happened while I was asleep?”

Papyrus paused and said his answer slowly. “Well… you, uh… your magic… you used it on Frisk and sent them up to the ceiling.” He paused as Sans let out a long groan and shifted his tone to a slightly more positive one before continuing. “It’s okay! The tiny human wants you to know that they know it was not on purpose!”

So he had hurt the kid. He probably scared them too. He couldn’t even protect the ones he cared about most from himself. Nice. He leaned his head back and rested it on the door. “Is everyone still here?”

“No. They all left, though Frisk didn’t want to until they knew you were okay. They said they would come by after their cooking lesson with Undyne.” He heard his brother shift before speaking again. His voice had dropped to a more serious tone. “When… When you speak in your sleep you always sound so distressed. What happens in these dreams?”

Sans couldn’t find it in himself to tell Pap, to tell him of the scenarios where everyone is gone. “It’s nothing, bro, you don’t need to worry.”

“If you won’t answer that question, can you at least answer this one? When we were in the clearing, and you were still asleep, y-you said something about disappointing me. Do you think you are a disappointment, brother?”

Sans was quiet for a long time. He couldn’t find any words to say, but that didn’t stop Papyrus from speaking again.

“You aren’t a disappointment, Sans. I don’t know what happens when you sleep, or what torments your thoughts all day, but I just want you to know that you are the best brother out there. The only way you could improve in your brother skills would be if… ” He trailed off mid-sentence because he heard the lock on Sans’ door click. The door didn’t open though, so Papyrus continued on. “The only way you could improve in your brother skills would be if you… talked to me about what was going on instead of telling me everything is okay. I just want you to be happy.”

Sans felt tears. He tried to stop them, but they were there. It was so much more complicated than his brother even knew. But maybe… maybe he was right. Maybe it didn’t have to be so complicated. Maybe he didn’t have to hide everything from his brother, not in this timeline, or the always-inevitable next.

He opened his door slowly to see Papyrus standing there, waiting with a small smile. The two brothers connected for a hug. After they let go, which wasn’t for a while, Sans pulled his brother downstairs and over to the couch to sit down. They had a lot to cover, didn’t they?

-


End file.
